“I didn’t have a chance to tell ye before,” Ilysa said, when he reached them. “Tearlag gave me a message for ye.”
“Wait in the boat for me, Sorcha.” Judging from past experience, Tearlag’s message would not be something he wanted his daughter to hear. After Sorcha skipped off with Bessie, he said, “Tearlag couldn’t wait to admonish me in person?”
“No admonishments this time,” Ilysa said, smiling. “She sends blessings on your marriage.”
“So that’s how ye knew to have enough food and drink on hand for a feast,” Alex said. “Thank ye for that.”
Connor had no notion of all that Ilysa did. Though she was young, Connor would never find a wife who could keep the castle half so well.
“Tearlag did say to remind ye that she was correct about the three women,” Ilysa said, “and about the gift being special and bright as a moonbeam.”
Alex glanced over his shoulder at his wee daughter, whose hair was the color of moonbeams and whose name meant “radiant.” “Aye, she is a special gift.”
“And the three women?” Ilysa asked.
“Three did require my help, though I can’t say any of them gave me a choice about giving it,” he said. “Glynis threatened me, Sorcha’s mother sailed off without her, and I couldn’t very well let the other one drown.”
Ilysa laughed. “I suppose not.”
“As Tearlag predicted, one brought deceit and another danger,” he said, and his heart missed a beat as he thought of how he could have lost Sorcha. Attempting to regain his light tone, he said, “And I’m hoping my new bride will fulfill a few of my deepest desires tonight.”
Ilysa gave him a soft smile and touched his arm. “Open your heart to Glynis.”
“And why should I take advice from Duncan’s baby sister?” Alex asked.
“Because, while some say ye got a better woman than ye deserve,” Ilysa said, “I believe ye can be as good a man as ye want to be, Alexander Ban MacDonald.”
* * *
Sorcha leaned against her father and waved good-bye to Dunscaith Castle as they sailed away. She missed the little red-haired girls already. Though they made lots of funny sounds, they had only one word between them. Sorcha didn’t mind that they screamed it over and over—
But she was disappointed she did not get to see the warrior queen her father told her about.
Unless her new mother was the warrior queen. Glynis dressed like the other women, but Sorcha could imagine her fighting with a great sword.
She felt safe with Glynis.
CHAPTER 38
Glynis intended to stay angry with Alex for a very long time.
Of course, having her husband sleep through their wedding night was a vast improvement over her first wedding night. Ach, Magnus was a disgusting, selfish pig both in and out of bed.
Glynis felt herself softening toward Alex as she watched him at the rudder, with Sorcha on his lap, pointing out landmarks on the shore and the small islands they passed. Alex had such an easy, generous nature. As her curiosity overcame her stubbornness, she inched her way along the rail until she was close enough to hear what Alex was saying.
“That is where your grandmother lives,” Alex said, pointing to a two-story house on an offshore island to their right. Then he pointed to an older, larger fortified house a short distance up the coast on their left. “And that is your grandfather’s, which is where we’ll be staying.”
Sorcha tugged at his arm and held up two fingers.
“Why do they have two houses?” Alex paused for a long moment before he answered. “They needed room for all their friends.”
Glynis should have taken that as a warning.
Alex’s mother and father had an earlier start from Dunscaith and were both waiting in the hall for them. As the serving women came in and out with drinks and platters of food, they gave Alex overly friendly greetings. Not one of them was old or unattractive.
This household was altogether too much like Clanranald’s. It made Glynis physically ill to be here. Although Alex’s jokes and laughing remarks were not as blatant as Magnus’s pinches and squeezes, his relationship with several of the women was clear, nonetheless.
Glynis was rapidly losing her appreciation for her new husband’s generous nature.
“Hello, Anna,” Alex called out to a buxom redhead, who winked at him. “You’re looking well, Brigid,” he said to the dark-haired beauty who made a point of brushing up against his shoulder when she brought him a cup of ale.
Sweat broke out on Glynis’s palms as she fought another wave of nausea. She fixed her gaze on the far wall and held on to the table as she got to her feet.
“I’d like to get settled in my chamber, if someone will show me where it is.”
* * *
“Here we are,” Alex said, as he opened the door for Glynis and Sorcha.
It felt strange to be in his old bedchamber, and stranger still to be settling his new family in it. From the time
